Contests & Promotions

Hi, my name is Steven Petersen. I'm a junior in high school in Minnesota. I play magic (maybe a little too much) and have gotten fairly good. I'm in touch with all the formats but I really only play type 1. The vintage format is the most diverse and interesting format a player like myself could want to play. I can play wacky combo, balls to the walls aggro, control, or anything in between. I tend to be an aggro player, just because it's less expensive. I do not possess all the power 9, yet. So to get my rating as high as possible (bragging rights) I play an effective aggro deck I've developed over the last month to beat the widest variety of decks. This deck has served me well and even won me a black lotus in tournament.

, so I'm back to shuffling. My second hand is a bit better. But Brian flexes his deck's muscles and he gets the 4cc monstrosities that are meant to crush aggro. I try to deal with his stuff, but the sacred mesa comes down before I can right myself and I concede when I see no possible way out. Game 2 goes much more smoothly for him, with me countering his 2nd turn Ancestral Recall

. I eventually beat him down. We go to game 3. We have about 7 minutes left so we know we'll have to play fast to finish. I get a good start early and beat him down under 10. He wraths away my lone river boa and he drops Zuran Orb

and he might as well have scooped right there. He had no answer I applied a bit more pressure and we sideboarded for game 2. In went my 8 cards and we drew each took 7. I kept, he kept, and I drew a 3-burn hand with some land. I play Scroll on turn 2 to guard myself against Ancestral with an untapped mountain and a REB in hand. He drops a keg and says go. I play kird ape, he blue blasts! I had decided to wait until after he blew the keg to play the ape, but autopilot went on and kird ape hit the stack. Thank you Luis for balancing the misplays. That wasn't all I did wrong. On turn 8 he decides he's ready to win and drops morphling. I have 4 burn spells in hand. So I triple burn the morphling eot. He counters each upon resolution. I untap target it with Chain Lightning

beats down 2 times and I'm left at 6. I could have killed him with a treetop village because he hadn't been blocking it with morphling. I attempt a boa to see if I can block the flying monstrosity and he counters. I'm not able play rancor on my treetop village and swing for 3 with it, putting him to 6. He untaps, attacks with morphling and says go. I scoop as I don't topdeck burn. Game 3 was just really quick. He attempted a couple of 'phids that met fates in the fires of my burn spells. I eventually overrun him with 4 or 5 creatures.

Games 3-2-1Matches 1-0-1

Round 3 against Pat Stein playing Gro-a-tog

This is my worst matchup in the tourney, the reason I ran 2 mazes main. I get a really good hand and got to burn out 2 dryads. A pair of Kird Ape

I had practiced against TnT a little last week and had gone 5-3. These numbers aren't wonderful and we don't want to hurt each other's ratings too much so we ID. I'll probably get a few points off of him because he's been so successful recently.

Games 5-2-1Matches 2-0-2

There had been 8 players with 6 points. 4 of us haddrawn and the other 4 played.

I got to go second this game which wasn't too bad. He starts by going demonic and tutoring for either lotus or the abyss, not sure which. I start with a taiga and say go. He drops the abyss. I play a treetop. He counters with wasteland. We go back and forth, neither of us really doing anything for a LONG time. He has me pretty much locked with moat out a replenish or 2 in hand I can only assume. There is one problem, though. His deck runs only 3 Tundra

s and I'll be able to deck him. His only way out once I've killed all 3 of his tundras and all he has is a pearl is too replenish a sacred mesa (both found their way to the grave) and beat me for 19 with a single 1/1. He gets to the point where he can do this doesn't have enough cards in his library to kill me so he scoops. Game 2 goes pretty well for me. His turn 2 Humility

is uber effective if he draws a wrath, moat, or abyss. He sees none of these until far too late. He's at 4 when my board is cleared. My topdecks kill him a bit later.

Games 7-2-1Matches 3-0-2

Quarterfinals Pat Stein, again

I get a mediocre draw and he gets a good one. I make the mistake of attacking before finding out if my COTH gets countered as he has a tog out. He beats me for 1. He counters my next attempt at a creature. He swings in with is tog for 1. He casts time walk. Gets barely lethal damage with a gush. Game 2 is a whole lot better. A tog gets played early on. I make it less effective chumping with a Kird Ape

limited the broken-ness of his plays. I nearly misplayed myself to death in not responding to my river boa getting countered by activating my tormod's crypt. He took his turn and removed the grave from the game with his tog. That brought me to 6. I played another call. He picked it off with his tog going to no cards in hand or grave, he was at 4. I eventually am able to kill him with scald and a boa. Submerge